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Saturday, January 21, 2017

Trump's Victory

Donald Trump’s election to the US Presidency seems almost unreal: a
man, caught on camera talking about his predilection for sexually
assaulting women has been deemed fit for high office. It is the
culmination of a long campaign, and although it is tempting to so many
to see it as indicating some sort of defect in the reasoning of American
voters, it is, with the magic of hindsight, explainable.

One feature of his election is celebrity: Trump has been famous for
a long time, and has built a brand around success and opulence. His
supporters during the election could be heard pointing out that he is a
billionaire, that he has been a hugely successful businessman and
suggesting he could bring those skills to the White House. Of course,
the reality is that he inherited his wealth, and the main skills he
developed were the tactics to use that wealth to bully and control:
indeed, his line of business, real estate, is not productive, and works
largely by siphoning off wealth produced elsewhere. It would be hard to
lose money by owning substantial chunks ofManhattan Island.

This aura has been added to by his presence in the American version of
‘The Apprentice’, with a regular audience of millions: this will not
only have bolstered his entrepreneur image, but also given him instant
brand recognition in a way which few time served or professional
politicians could match. As with Reagan and Schwarzenegger before him,
he wouldn’t be the first to translate media celebrity into a successful
political career. Although he might be the first person who was famous
for being famous to do so.

Coded racism

During the Obama administration he added notoriety to fame. He was
seen as a prominent participant in the ‘Birther’ movement: the campaign
that alleged that Obama was not a ‘natural born American’ as required by
the constitution, and so could not hold presidential office. From 2011
(after Obama had published a short version of his Hawaian birth
certificate) Trump publicly disputed Obama’s citizenship. He eventually
laid claim to credit for forcing Obama to publish his full birth
certificate details. The birther movement campaign has been seen in many
quarters as being coded racism, challenging the validity of having an
brown skinned man in the White House. As events would turn out, it
certainly did not hurt Trumps electoral chances.

Indeed, one of the take home lessons of the vote was the racial
split: 58 percent of white respondents in exit polls states they had
voted for Trump. 80 percent of black respondents voted for Clinton.
Likewise, Trump secured 67 percent of white respondents without college
education, and 49 percent of those with. His voters were overwhelmingly
concerned about immigration and terrorism, the key themes of his
election campaign.

The ideological fantasy of race, and the consequential lived
experience marks US politics deeply, and much of the split analysed
above was not a substantial change over the previous election. Trump
only gained 1 percent against 2012 among the white population, but given
the preponderance of that category (about 70 percent of the vote), such
as shift was significant.
The other biggest shift was amongst the poorest section of the
population (family income under $30K), where Trump gained 16 percent
over 2012 (but still only had a 41 percent share to Clinton’s 53
percent). Indeed, the only income bracket Trump had a majority in was
the $50K-$99K (the average income in the States is around $44K). The
people in this bracket will likely be the ones who feel vulnerable to
losing the status and advantage they have: and will feel that they have
'worked hard' to get what they have, and resent welfare payments or
anything that seeks to redress economic disadvantage, up to, and
including feeling that such things are taking away from them, rather
than helping lift others up. It also helped Trump that this income
bracket makes up 31 percent of those who voted.

This is the bracket that the so-called 'Alt-Right' appeals to:
largely male and professional, they see the ‘Social Justice Warriors’
coming to take away their privilege. In the name of victimhood and
‘fairness’ against the structures designed to ameliorate poverty and
inequality, they are seeking to strike back and defend what they have.
Using racial ideology to divide the poorest sections of society, and
bring them on board (perhaps with a sense that they will benefit if the
money stops being given to their racial others) is possibly the key to
account for the Trump coalition.

Of course, what needs to be seen is that with sclerotic growth,
stagnant or falling wages, and real terms failures of those ameliatory
measures to address inequality at all it’s not surprising that the
Federal government is seen as failing, and the established party in
power has been punished for those failures.

Electoral shenanigans

The Republican Party has made a great play of opposing the
Affordable Care Act (succeeding in rebranding it as Obamacare), and they
look set to abolish it. One for the hardened ideologues, those who
genuinely believe that if people cannot afford their own health care –
because it’s their own fault for not having worked hard enough – they
shouldn’t get any. Of course, Obamacare was simply compulsory insurance
and health regulation (barely registering on the scale of publicly
organised health regimes around the world), but it was enough for a
Republican rallying cry. That many of their voters will directly lose
out from its repeal shows what a masterpiece in propagandising their
campaign has been. The point remains, that it was not enough to get
people to come out in numbers to support it: voters didn’t feel any
benefit from the system.

The fact is, though, that Trump did not get a majority across the
country. The point is, he won under the current system (and has himself
pointed out, in his defensive way, that he would have used different
tactics if the system had been about the national popular vote).
Republican control of state governments played a strong role in this
election. The more naked aspect was the introduction of voter ID laws,
and an aggressive campaign of challenging inclusion on the electoral
rolls. Trump himself still maintains that he only lost the popular vote
due to voter fraud (though none has been proven).

The cry of ‘Voter fraud’ has been taken up to add in series of
measures which deter voting and registration. Some forms of ID can be
difficult to obtain, and require going long distances from poor areas.
Also, the states control the staffing and position of the ballot
stations (often relying on volunteers).

Control at state level has also helped the Republicans establish a
healthy majority in the House of representatives: the states are
responsible for drawing up the constituency boundaries, often producing
very oddly shaped districts to produce majorities for one party or the
other (hence the famous Gerrymander was named after districts under
Governor Gerry in the 19th century). Much of this districting breaks
into the distinction between inner city, suburban and rural. The
Democrats are heavily concentrated in the urban areas. Trump carried the
majority of the suburban and rural vote, it was Clinton’s preponderant
vote in the inner cities which gave her majority.

Such shenanigans may suggest why, despite all the hoopla, only
around 55 percent of the electorate voted at all: so not only was
Trump's 2.8 million votes shy of a majority of the vote, but he barely
represents a quarter of the electorate at all. His election is a Triumph
of propaganda putting the gloss on machine politicians gaming the
system.

Fellow billionaires

That he immediately handed over the Washington machine to his
fellow Billionaires suggests that his electoral coalition will gain
little from his administration, and that it represents state capture by a
clique that will set about filling their boots in ways which it will be
complex to bring to public attention.

America has frequently been ruled by millionaires: this is the
first time that a billionaire and practising capitalist has elbowed the
professional politicians aside to give direct power to a clique of
billionaires and corporate executives. The biggest risk to the
capitalist class collectively in the US is that this clique with form a
kleptocracy that will use state power to their advantage, much as with
the murky relationship between Dick Cheney and Halliburton during the
Bush II presidency.

This is where the question of the Russian hacking gets interesting
(if it happened): Trump’s minority was only marginally able to win the
election, in such a tight situation, if there was state interference by a
foreign power, could it have swung the election? Is the oligarchic
clique in charge in hock to the oligarchic clique in Russia? Targeting
and emphasising discontent could only work if there was discontent to
work with, the hacking could not have whistled a victory up from thin
air. Claiming hacking happened is in the factional interest of the
Democrats, and Putin has an interest in having the possibility that he
could do such a thing hanging in the air. Trump has a direct personal
interest in being President.